


Day 12: Past of Megatron

by GemmaRose



Series: Lost Light Fest 2018 [12]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Bad Poetry, Family, Functionist Universe (Transformers), Gen, Poetry, Terminus is an embarrassing dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-08-14 05:39:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16486886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: Everyone had to start somewhere, even the famously eloquent Megatron of Tarn.





	Day 12: Past of Megatron

“Um, Terminus?” Arson fidgeted when the old miner turned his optics on her, only able to meet his gaze for a few nano-klicks before looking down at his pedes.

“What is it?” he asked, setting down the datapad he’d been going over.

“Can I ask you a question?” she glanced up, and found the miner giving her one of those weird soft smiles he only seemed to have for her and Megatron.

“Of course.” he turned in his chair, giving her his full attention, and she fidgeted some more. Somehow she always felt like a rust-ant under a magnifying lense when he looked at her, like he could see straight down to her spark. It was stupid, she knew that wasn’t the case, but she couldn’t help but hope he wasn’t disappointed by what he saw.

“It’s about Megatron.” she said, when she realised she hadn’t actually asked the question she came for.

“Oh?” Terminus arched an optic ridge. “And why not ask Megatron this question?”

Arson shrugged, the bottom of her firing assembly clacking against her back. “I don’t know if he’d tell me the truth.” she said after another few nano-kliks. “He doesn’t like to talk about the past.”

“Well, I missed a good few million meta-cycles of his life, but I can tell ya anything you want to know about him from when we worked Messatine.”

“Really?” she couldn’t help but grin, and Terminus chuckled as he stood.

“C’mon, let’s sit on the couch if you want a proper conversation.” he walked slow enough for her to easily keep pace, even with her much shorter legs, and only once they were seated did he speak again. “Now, what about your carrier did you want to know?”

Arson hooked a finger under the lower edge of her shin plating, dragging it side to side idly as she tried to get her words in order. “Did you know him when he was my age?” she asked at length.

“I did.” Terminus nodded. “We worked together from the day he was deemed fit for duty ‘til the day, well, I’m still not sure what happened.” he chuckled, and Arson giggled along. Megatron had told her, and she knew he’d told Terminus too, but apparently time travel was too impossible for some old mechs to wrap their processors around. “Anyway, why do ya ask?”

“Did he ever have trouble with words?” she looked up at Terminus, letting frustration leak into her field. “He keeps trying to teach me poetry but I just can’t seem to get it right.”

Terminus stared at her a nano-klik, then threw his helm back and bellowed with laughter. “Arson, you listen here.” he tapped one finger against her breastplate, optics alight and smile wider than she’d ever seen on his weathered face. “Don’t let that little slagger make you think you should be able to match him. His early poems weren’t nothin’ to send home about.” Terminus straightened up slightly, helm tilting as his optics focused on something only he could see. “Or rather, they _aren’t_ nothin’ to write home about.” he smirked, and pulled a pair of battered datapads from his subspace.

Arson immediately sat up straight, optics widening as Terminus turned one of the datapads on. “Those are Megatron’s?” she asked, holding out her hands to take the one he offered her.

“Not his _first_ first, but the first ones I could manage to save.” Terminus nodded. “I’d reckon he’d been at it for a Messatine year or two by then?”

“Wow.” Arson breathed, ghosting her fingers over the scuffed screen. “Are they bad?”

“They’re _awful_.” Terminus grinned.

\---

The sound of laughter was rare enough in the AVL’s hideouts that when Megatron first heard it, he thought it was a glitch of his audials. A klik later though he heard it again, softer but the same timbre. Terminus, he realised after a klik. Looking at the datapads he still had to go over, he thought for a few nano-kliks and decided that taking a few kliks to stretch his legs and relax his processor couldn’t hurt.

As he approached the room Terminus had claimed as his own, however, he picked up more laughter. Not only his mentor’s, but his sparkling’s as well. Now he was curious. What was there that could have both of them in such high spirits? Perhaps Terminus had found some high grade and was making a fool of himself? Megatron bit back a smile at the thought of Terminus overcharged. He’d never witnessed it himself, due to their circumstances on Messatine, but he’d certainly heard tales from other miners.

The door stood open when he approached, and Arson audibly fought down her laughter and tried to shake it from her vocaliser with a couple quick, clicky resets. One of many little ways in which she took after her sire.

“Oh, read that one next.” Terminus sounded like he was smiling audial to audial, and at the sound of his old friend’s voice Megatron paused. Whatever they were reading together, they were enjoying it. If he walked in he’d just distract them, and anything that got Arson to read more was a good thing. She needed to expand her worldview, learn at least a little of what life was like before the Council. What it could someday be like again, hopefully.

“Is that really the start of it?” Arson asked, and he heard the sound of Terminus’s kibble shifting.

“I think there was more, but half these files are corrupted so we’ll never know, will we?”

There was a moment of silence, like Arson wanted to say something, but after a few nano-kliks she reset her vocaliser again and started to read aloud. “Silken polish turned to brittle rust, their figures grate together. The eloquent sound of ripping, a ruined piece of crumpled plating. Energon seams-”

“Terminus!” Megatron whirled through the doorway, and the older miner gave him the biggest slag-sucking grin he’d ever seen, _including_ from Rodimus.

“Hi Megatron!” Arson grinned, cheerful in the face of potential punishment, just like her sire. “How do you pronounce this glyph?” she turned the datapad in her hands, highlighting the next glyph in the line. He snatched it from her and subspaced it, all too aware of the heated energon pooling under his face plates, warming the metal.

“How- Why-” his vocaliser glitched, and he settled for glaring over his sparkling’s helm at Terminus, who wasn’t phased at all.

“Why’d I save your early works?” Terminus chuckled, looking down at Arson before meeting Megatron’s optics again. “To embarrass you, of course. Thought it’d be a conjunx, not a ward, but I think Arson appreciated the reading material just fine.” he patted the little flamethrower on the helm, and she practically glowed with happiness.

“Terminus!” he complained, not whining because he was five _million_ meta-cycles old and an ex-warlord to boot. He didn’t whine.

“And I thought my stuff was bad.” Arson giggled. Megatron buried his face in his hands.

“Kill me now.” he mumbled.

Terminus laughed as he stood, joints creaking slightly, and Megatron neither flinched from nor leaned into the hand that clapped on his shoulder. “Just remember, bitlet. You can’t expect her to be _that_ much better than you were at her age.”

He slid two fingers apart to look sidelong at Terminus, who gave him a cheerful grin and patted him on the shoulder a few more times. “Arson, maybe it’s time you got some recharge. And make sure your caretaker gets some too, huh?”

“Terminus, I can take care of myself.” he sighed.

“But will you?” Terminus asked pointedly, and Megatron tried very hard not to think about how he’d planned to get back to his datapads after this. “Thought not. Get some recharge, your work will be there in the morning.”

“Yes, Terminus.” he rolled his optics, and grinned when his mentor whacked him upside the helm.


End file.
